New Delhi: The Government is set to announce a
residential coaching scheme for minority students
towards effecting a radical improvement in their
employment and representation in government and
industry — one of the objectives laid down in the
Sachar Committee report on improving the state of
minorities.

The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry will
soon roll out an ambitious scheme that envisages
coaching for all government examinations — from
Civil Services to state-level examinations — for
minority students selected after an all-India merit
test.

The scheme will be announced soon and sources said
efforts are on to have it included in the Prime
Minister’s speech on Independence Day.

“The idea is to train students to crack every major
exam from IAS to IIT. While Phase I will see five
universities starting the coaching programmes, Phase
II will extend it to 10 other universities. While
the coaching will be free, there may be a nominal
charge for residential facilities,”said an official.

Keen to get the scheme launched, the HRD Ministry
will open Academies of Minority Coaching in Aligarh
Muslim University (AMU) in Uttar Pradesh, Jamia
Hamdard University in Delhi, Maulana Azad Urdu
University in Hyderabad and the Ambedkar University
this year itself. As many as 200 students will be
enrolled. The coaching programmes will run from five
weeks to a year depending on the examination.

The
scheme, mooted by Kapil Sibal, was taken up on
priority basis by HRD Secretary for Higher
Education R P Agarwal who has already held
discussions with the Vice Chancellors of these
universities.

The
HRD Ministry plans to expand the ambit of this
scheme to include SC/STs and women among those
eligible. In fact, the 10 other universities
will be women universities. An estimated 40 per
cent of those enrolled for this coaching should
be women, as per the Ministry’s plans.

The
residential coaching programme takes off from
the Scheme of Coaching for SC/ST Students and
Minority Community Candidates for National
Education Testing (NET). While the UGC scheme
was quite a non-starter, this scheme will be a
far improved version.

Universities which will conduct this coaching
will be provided some seed money and the freedom
to employ their staff for the coaching classes
besides inviting experts.